25-7-24
Dear Partners in Thought,
Russia has gradually become a key concern for Europe and the West since Putin made his speech in 2007 at the security conference in Munich, when he complained about the way the West treated Russia. And then we saw Russian military operations in Georgia in 2008, followed by a game-changing involvement in Syria and, of course, Ukraine, first in Crimea and Donbas in 2014 and then with his full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the latter I dealt with in previous pieces. This Ukraine invasion, which was widely expected, did not bring Russia the results that it wanted, stressing familiar weaknesses of its armed forces as seen historically (the number of dead speaking for itself) but also most notably in the post-Soviet 1990s and while Putin strongly focused on rebuilding what he perceived as being Russia’s core strength and reflecting his regime’s legitimacy. I thought it would be good to focus on Russia and its military and understand its developments since the Yeltsin years.
As such, I wanted to tell you about “Putin’s Wars” a key book from Mark Galeotti, today one of the leading Western experts on Russian affairs with a strong personal exposure to post-Soviet Russia and a unique knowledge of all aspects of Russian military history and the Putin era. Having taught at NYU and now a Honorary Professor at University College London, Galeotti was a Visiting Professor at Charles University, Prague and is still involved as a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of International Relations of my beautiful city here. I had the pleasure of exchanging on a few topics with him in recent years. Of note, he was placed on the list of 28 individuals barred from traveling to Russia by Moscow in Q2 2022, this showing the quality of his writing and where he stood. “Putin’s Wars” is a complete history of the Russian armed forces post-Soviet collapse with a focus on Putin. As a warning, the book, which is very encyclopedic, is indeed very detailed – at times overly so for some readers in terms of the descriptions of military units, names of commanders, number of soldiers, kits and armaments and precise military acronyms involved, making it akin to a PhD thesis: but every piece of information is accurate and adds to the seriousness of the book which is also based on actual interactions with many Russian soldiers over three decades.
The book covers the last thirty-five years of Russian history starting with the end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union under the Gorbachev era. Many of us remember these times, mixing hope and worry as the Soviets were collapsing and the Yeltsin leadership was concerning, eventually leading to an oligarchic regime, chaos and then to Vladimir Putin, who coming from the KGB became PM to put Russia back on track in what he saw as the right order. His focus on restoring military strength was a core mission in restoring Russia’s relevance globally. Before going through all the wars (each described in small, focused chapters), Galeotti offers us a description of the state of the steeply declining post-Soviet Russian army in the 1990s with its bullying culture, perennial absence of NCOs, poor command structure, lack of proper funding when not proper food for the troops was available and, in fact, many features explaining the roots of the very poor battlefield performance seen in Ukraine – and finally why a war of one week is now well into its third year. One feature few of us knew was the impact of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from CEE in the early nineties with no funding to do so (apart from a West Germany that would then stand in) and infrastructure to welcome them back home, leading to 280,000 military families without housing at the time.
The main story starts with the first Chechen war in 1994 – seen as a humiliation for the Russian forces – and a good reminder of the challenging relation between Chechens and Moscow, ever since Stalin and his decision to deport its population from North Caucasus to Central Asia. Many of us will remember the name of Dudayev, an air force general who declared Chechnya’s independence, even if Yeltsin had initially promoted such moves during the Soviet collapse, which eventually led to Moscow’s military retaliation. We learn about the superior military abilities of the Chechens due to their training from a young age, traditionally leading them to join Russian paratroopers and special forces units. This first Chechen war was a clear failure for Russia, showing its military weaknesses and inability to operate as a strong country any more, even if it had decided to become a regional and not global military power. While the capital, Grozny, was taken in 1996 at a high cost of lives, and the war seemed over after Dudayev was killed in a targeted air strike, Yeltsin returned to domestic politics, failing to prevent Maskhadov, the then Chechen military leader, unexpectedly taking the capital city back. The Kremlin then decided to stop the war it could not easily win (even against a “ramshackle guerilla”) and grant autonomy to Chechnya as long as it stayed part of the Russian Federation. As the Chechen leadership was more able to fight than to govern efficiently, another war would occur in 1999.
The war had been a blow to Russia’s military prowess but also to the country’s ability to manage its own affairs as it was rebuilding itself. Aside from the initial Chechnya conflict, Galeotti also covers the Transnistrian ethnic Russian drive for independence from the new Moldova, the civil war in Georgia and the implosion of Yugoslavia, giving rise to a nationalistic Serbia led by former Communist leader Milosevic, thus underlining the challenges of the former Soviet Union and its “region.” As I was reading these early chapters leading to the core book focus – Putin and his own wars – I can recall these times when I was also working occasionally in Russia for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) whose mission was to create a new and better economic region, also to ensure peace in Europe and beyond. It was a time when we could see that Yeltsin and his team were trying to get Russia more world-integrated, while even those of us in the filed did not know all the side stories we know today. It was also a world of daily chaos that we took for granted, given the times. When I was attending the EBRD annual meeting of 1994 in St. Petersburg and leaving the hotel-boat (as there were not enough hotels for all the attendees of the annual meeting) I could see in the parking lot a car with five cadavers inside, one of the results of the ongoing gang war that was business as usual in key Russian cities at the time. The Yeltsin years, while being almost naturally chaotic given the Russian regime transition, were also characterized by a leader who was better known for being good at being “against” than “for something” and lacked a clear vision for a new Russia, all of this compounded with poor health and an increasingly clear state of drunkenness.
Putin is dealt with very well by Galeotti, who goes through who the man initially was – someone totally unknown to most Russians and the world before he became PM in 1999, acting President and then won the presidency against Communist Zyuganov in 2000. Putin was “a scrappy kid from a poor family” with a childhood in post-war devastated Leningrad. Although Galeotti does not dwell on his teenage years which I recall were a bit wild, we get quickly into his strong desire to join the KGB (also driven by the spy movies of his childhood) as a way to “belong” to something great, where he was not deemed to be a star. He would end up being a liaison officer with the East German Stasi in Dresden when the whole system collapsed, creating a personal shock that would explain a few of his key features. He then worked at the Leningrad State University, a job he likely secured via KGB connections, and became an adviser to liberal and first democratically-elected mayor Anatoly Sobchak ‑ to many in the West the new face of a Russia we all wanted (looking back it was an odd mutual fit, if any). He eventually became Head of International Affairs to the Mayor and then Deputy Mayor until Sobchak lost his reelection in 1996. Having being noticed for all his qualities and, crucially, soberness by the “Family” (Yeltsin’s inner network) he gradually became a potential successor and then in 1999, Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister the same day. Within five months of his new role, Yeltsin resigned and Putin became acting President. His first challenge was to be the second Chechnya war, while offering a new face of Russia to the West as 9-11 took place and he sided with America in helping it seek revenge in the “Global War on Terror.” It was a time when George W. Bush could see into Putin’s soul (some mean critics would see another sign of shortsightedness). While Putin started reasserting Russia’s role on the international scene, he also re-drew the rules of the game at home by forcefully controlling all the oligarchs who had been running, or at least benefitting from, the country behind the scene under Yeltsin, all the more since funding and securing his re-election in 1996. Many Russians must have liked this strategic correction.
The book is not simply about Putin and his wars, but focuses mainly on the Russian military and the great efforts by Putin to overhaul it following the first Chechen war debacle, while taking it away from the declining Soviet times. Russia under Putin spent much time and work gradually recreating a defense (some would way ultimately an offense) force seemingly of the first order that would go well beyond the beautiful and local population-reassuring May day Victory parades, or its ever-present nuclear capabilities (today still the largest in the world in terms of “rockets”, which says a lot given where the country really is). A few chapters are devoted to what went on and who led this key overhaul since 2000. Names like Sergeyev, Ivanov and Serdyukov who ran the Ministry of Defense may have been forgotten today, while Sergei Shoigu, in post since 2012 until recently and the Ukraine “special operation” unhappiness, will be well known. In an unusual way, some chapters address specific troops (which were much of the focus of the re-engineering – in itself a weakness as too overly focused) like the paratroopers and their desired hyper-masculinity mirroring the well-known “propaganda” picture of the bare-chested Russian leader seen on a horse in the wilderness.
We then go into the second Chechnya war in 1999, which stressed Putin’s desire to reassert control over what was deemed to be Russia and started after a few Moscow apartment bombings took place, even while the origin of the perpetrators is still being “discussed.” Chechnya became indirectly the focus of al-Qaeda via an Islamic leader, Saudi-born “Emir Khattab,” who had led a small invasion of Dagestan and was close to Bin Laden, the plan being to eventually create an Islamic caliphate and not Chechen independence. It turns out that his move was stopped by local Russian troops while Maskhadov, now running Chechnya, was not able to show a good enough control of the situation, thus leading Moscow to start a second intervention and regain control of Grozny. The intervention was not that of a massive war, while the opposition was not the best either. That successful war for Russia nevertheless heralded the new times of what some called “Kadyrovstan” after Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Russian Chechen leader who took over Chechnya as a result of the second war and still runs it today (funnily his son, 16, has been, the head of his father’s Security Service since November 2023, illustrating one of the issues that Russian-flavored forces may encounter in our interesting times).
We then go into the Georgian operation that marks the first foray into non-Russian territory even if an old Soviet land as Stalin would agree. We go back to the now almost-forgotten and jailed Mikheil Saakashvili, then the US-educated leader of Georgia, who post-Shevardnadze era, wanted to get closer to the West while spending 9.2% GDP on defense (some NATO members would blush). This very new post-Soviet approach led to Russian-assisted separatism in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and a swift Russian military intervention in the former to counter Tbilisi’s reaction to forcefully ensure national unity. As a prelude to what the world would see in Ukraine since February 2022, the swift and successful Russian operation, which Galeotti goes through in detail, also showed some flaws in terms of weak coordination and communication between the various Russian military units and branches. Georgia, if anything, led the Russia leadership to focus on the strategic need to change its military further. Many changes were indeed made to the Russian forces, and then applied in light-footprint interventions first in Crimea and then Syria, the latter that saw Russia operating militarily outside its regional sphere, and ultimately and unexpectedly helping save the shaky Assad regime.
Russia’s military overhaul was focused on modernization and professionalization to make the forces more adaptable to modern warfare. Combat platforms, electronic warfare forces, long-range precision weapons and drones, and hybrid and cyber weapons were also developed, as soldiers were better-trained while deployed in small conflicts like in Georgia and then Syria. The navy did not seem to get Putin’s focus and stayed a “green water” one as opposed to becoming a “blue water” one, unlike that of the US or even British and French navies – all while suffering substantial losses in recent months, making the Black Sea less “Russian.” However, all these positive developments did not go with the required battlefield effectiveness also for larger conflicts showing the challenges of an unfinished military revamp. Prior to February 2022, Russian armed forces had only been involved in relatively small conflicts (even if presented as “Little Green Men” like in Crimea and parts of Donbas in 2014 and later). To be fair, special operations, were also the focus of NATO and Western military forces over the last 20 years, especially since Iraq 2.0 for the US, this leading also some European countries, well beyond their reliance on Washington, to focus less on maintaining a credible defense machine. In addition, great wars were simply no longer in the minds of many in the West, all the more among younger generations, while the economy and jobs were the primary focus. War was simply no longer a factor. Ukraine would change this, to some extent even if foreign affairs were rarely on top of voters’ preoccupations.
The Ukraine invasion is naturally dealt with in great detail (I shall keep for you to discover), even if we know that Galeotti was not helped by Putin’s timing as he had just finished his initial final draft in early 2022. While we were in a state of a “new cold war” since Crimea as of 2014, we will always speculate as to what drove Putin to invade the whole of Ukraine in 2022. Did the relatively soft Western response to Crimea à la Obama in 2014 help? Did Covid and his isolation and actual distancing from his top team wrongly enhance his dreams of restored imperialistic grandeur? Did the relative successes of the small (and at times low-key) operations in Crimea and Syria lead to misplaced over-confidence? We will never know and can keep speculating. What we do know is that the Ukraine invasion showed a more disorganized Russian army than most in the West would have expected. Such an invasion and the seizure of Kyiv should have taken one week as many believed, especially Putin. And then Ukrainian forces pushed back (NATO training since 2014 having helped) even if not able to lead a successful counteroffensive as seen in the summer of 2023. The state of the long insurgency war in Ukraine reflects both Russian military weakness and a much stronger and unexpected Ukrainian preparedness to repel such an invasion. If there is one key feature I would personally stress, it is that “equipment” does not replace or improve “management,” the key weakness of the Russian forces, also historically, being found in command and control from the top to the strangely still-absent NCOs at basic level. Securing obedience and loyalty among military commanders, a key and deeply-rooted feature for autocracies even if disguised as democracies, does not create efficiency on the battlefield. This key weakness for Russia is added today to deficiencies in logistics – spare parts, food, water or transport trucks, not to mention a still-poor training of junior officers, a remnant hazing of enlisted men, barracks from another age, bad troop nutrition and, of course, low pay. The fact that the Wagner group pre-Prigozhin “downfall” seemed to be the best unit on the ground was no surprise while using jail inmates (something Ukraine is now experimenting with) and a focus on mobilizing ethnic minorities were strange even if understandable,- also given the strong but unexpected outflow from the motherland of many educated men, like IT professionals, away from urban centers (this even if many Russians deep down backed “prestige restoration” – as long as it did not involve them it would seem).
Finally, another key feature of Russian military issues is that the defense of one’s country does not guarantee the same energy and drive of military personnel when invading another, all the more so if not really threatened (this whatever the odd official line repeated by wooden-looking Kremlin spokesmen Dmitry about NATO’s intentions). Ukraine is a case in point, even if it does not guarantee that an 8% GDP war economy-transformed Russia (also perhaps reflecting an existential need, alongside its world leading nuclear stockpile) would not win over the long-term. Wars of that sort are clearly not linear in their developments, as seen with Ukraine also having gradually addressed its weaknesses in manpower, fortifications and munitions, while the current Russian offensive on Kharkiv is fizzling out and weaponry supply and refurbishing stocks appear to be key new issues going forward. A Russian ultimate win – largely focused on staying the course come what may – is clearly always possible if and when Ukrainians and the West were to get “tired”, also “helped” for the latter by an increasingly possible and ill-fated isolationistic and resulting Ukraine-forgetting Trump-Vance victory in November.
Warmest regards,
Serge
Desperate Measures 